Tools: Sex, music and violence

Swedish débutante author Erica Löfström's first book "Sex, music and violence" is surprisingly in Norwegian. The book's main character Beatrice uses sex, music and violence as a survival kit handle life.

"People have said that my book gives insight of a mentally ill person's reality, but I never thought of this as being a mentally ill person. The book only describes how a person uses tools to handle life and their complex background."

I applaud this outspoken view and look forward to getting a copy of the book. I'm looking forward to reading this book - but will it be just as good as The howling miller?

Treating ADHD with food and discipline

In the news: Food and discipline against ADHD

In the USA, almost 10% of children under 18 are medicated for ADHD.
In Norway, about 4%.
In France, 0.5%.

What's the secret?

According to family therapeut Marylin Wedge, "French doctors try to find the psychosocial sources for behavioural problems. Doctors are more interested in what the children eat and see correlations between food and behaviour."

You are what you eat.

Bullying: Responsibility

The Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang recently had an article about a psychologist, practicing cognitive therapy, making a statement about the victims of bullying needing to take responsibility to change their thought pattern so that they don't feel like victims.

He also went further, saying that verbal bullying has great resemblance to freedom of expression. Because often, WHAT is being said is not actually illegal.

This caused a bit of a stir. The office of the Children's Ombudsman responded with a letter stating that bullying is NOT freedom of expression, and that it is never the victim's responsibility that bullying occurs. In an anti-bullying forum on Facebook, several people obviously sided with the Ombudsman, some even making statements about the doctor that resemble, well, verbal bullying. How dare he blame the victims? The victim is never at fault. (The moderator, I'm happy to say, understood exactly what the doc was sayin')

I believe, however, that the doctor is right, and that the Ombudsman and the others who respond negatively are simply blinded by the attitude that the bully has the entire blame for the bullying. Because what they make so much noise about is not really about anything the good doctor has said.

Freedom of expression

Yes, verbal bullying can be compared to freedom of expression. Let me explain how.

In a very simple explanation of psychology, something happens, this thing means something to you, the meaning generates an emotion, and you act on the emotion. Your action then causes something else to happen, which means something - and so on.

First scenario: "Something happening" might be that a bully tells you you're worthless. In your mind, this statement might be a confirmation about your idea that you are worthless. This gives you pain, and you start crying. Bully scored!

Second scenario: "Something happening" might be that someone drew a made a movie depicting Muhammad as a child molestor, and you learn that the US government is showing this movie in all TV channels in the USA. In your mind, this seems to indicate that the US government is building up a consensus to attack your country, and you and your family will be killed. So you become outraged and go put the American Embassy in flames.

The power of verbal bullying lies in the second stage: what this means to you, and the emotion attached to this meaning. And you have the power to change that meaning. So let us try the first scenario again with a different meaning:

Bully tells you that you're worthless. In your mind, you realize that the bully is trying to tear you down, so that he can feel good about himself, and so you get a feeling of petty and decide to give him a hug, telling him he doesn't have to tear other people down to get hugs, all he has to do is ask.

Responsibility

The thing is, the only person who can change what something means to you is yourself. Noone can do it for you, and therefore you are responsible for the change to happen. This also means that the victim is responsible for the change to happen within themselves. This is what the good doctor is trying to convey, and it is absolutely true.

But it is not the full story.

Newborn children does not understand these concepts. They learn from the people around them. And the people around them are usually not cognitive therapists. So if we want to instill the non-bully behaviour in our children and thereby create a better, bully free society, we all have to take responsibility to increase our own knowledge and skills, so that we can become better role models for our children.

Your heart's desire

I spent the weekend driving to Sweden and back for a personal erand. During the drive, I had a chance to listen to some audio books that were long overdue to listen to. One by John Berglund titled "The emotional language", and one by Randi B Noyes titled "The art of leading yourself".

Berglund's five hour "seminar" gives great insight into the human psyche from a professional point of view. There is no doubt Berglund know what he's talking about, and the emotional system he describes is quite logical. I'll quickly sum it up like this:

Something happens, which has a meaning, which generates an emotion, which is inside of you and leads you to make a decision, which is then turned into action.

There are no negative emotions, as the word "negative" implies that "it should not have been this way". Of course it should be this way - if something blocks your way, you SHOULD feel anger, the adrenaline gives you energy to overcome the obstacle. It is not negative, it is a difficult and/or painful emotion. Therefore, if you do not want to be angry because something happened, and you can not change what happened (we are all late for the past), you must change the meaning.

Noyes has a life experience approach. Basically, she does not have Berglund's professional background, though she does make valid points about, among many things, following your heart's desire. I'm glad I listened to Berglund first, so I could avoid certain caveats that would otherwise have gone by undetected. The one question that started to bug me was "if you learned that you have one year left to live, and there was no shortage of money, what would you do? Would you keep your job?"

Interestingly, no. While I thoroughly enjoy my job, I have to admit that there is one set of things I love to plan, to try to find time for, and try to put into life: It's my travel/bicycling/writing projects. According to Noyes, then, this is what I should be doing for a living. Alas, today, it's something I spend money to be able to do, it does not actually bring any money in.

It should, however. Just by putting together a photo book from Paambi, I could theoretically get something off the ground before I start the longer writing session. I also see how I want to dive into some of the adventures uncovered during my trips and research various aspects. Who is that guy who died by the road in France? What is it about this tiny village that makes me want to return? How about staying at this unknown place for a couple of weeks to paint, take photographs and get to know people?

And as Berglund says, there is no "but", there is "and". You can't say something true and then negate it with another truth. They are both truth.

Therefore, I would love to do all this AND my current situation of being employed means I'm not able to do as much of this as I would like to. AND I have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed. If I can make each trip/project self-funding, I guess that would be an important first step.